Black Doves Recap ‘Go Bang Time’: Omari Douglas shines as the civilian in love with a triggerman

Black Doves Season 1 Episode 4 Recap and Review

Michael, the love of Sam’s life, was already the heart of Black Doves before we even met him. From the first episode, the intent was to show a spy in a decade-long con (Helen) who fell in love and now wanted revenge for her lover’s (Jason) brutal loss of life. Yet, no matter how many flashbacks we’ve had of the supposedly passionate relationship, it just never hit quite as hard as it should, as the driving force of a bloody narrative. Michael’s story, on the other hand, carried pain and poignancy, and the unbreakable tie that was love. The third episode showed us Michael’s baptism into the violence that was Sam’s life. This episode showed their reunion, seven years after they were forced apart.

‘You let me fall in love with someone who didn’t exist. Do you know how terrifying that is?’ Omari Douglas (he’s a Lawrence Olivier award recipient!) has been giving us glimpses of the warm, kind man who came to the shattering understanding of how easy it was to love someone with barely concealed darkness. Here, he voiced his pain and fears with the eloquence of one who has spent years trying to heal from such deep loss. The Sam who stood in front of him was a Sam who loved him, but also, a Sam who was still lying to him. Lenny Lines threatened Michael’s life if Sam did not kill Hector Newman. Sam, along with Williams and Eleanor, walked through a furious gun battle, and Sam still could not bring himself to kill Hector.

Michael was a civilian through and through, one who thought he had reached the nadir of his pain so that nothing Sam could say could possibly make things worse for him. When he asked for a ballpark figure of how many Sam has killed, Sam gave it to him, and it did make things worse. But the pull was there, undimmed by time and space, and whilst Sam was on a job with Helen, Michael’s messages came through. He still searched for a reconnection with the man who stripped him of his civilian’s illusion of safety in an ordinary life. This can only lead to more pain, but when has that ever stopped those who truly loved?

Sam’s moments with Michael were islands of calm and emotion amidst an ongoing fight. The episode began with Sam, Williams, and Eleanor storming Hector Newman’s fortress, wearing tinsel and to the tune of Christmas music. I loved that the tinsel was not just because they looked cool on these assassins, they served a purpose as the three pretended to be drunk partiers to get close to the guards at the door and shoot them. It was a rousing way to open the episode.

Hector had more men that they anticipated, and Sam kept having flashbacks through the gunfight. For reasons still unknown, he allowed Hector to live again, still a kid, yes, but the kid who led the attack on his and Michael’s home seven years ago, the kid whose very life was a threat to Michael’s, as Lenny Lines repeatedly made clear. They found the unconscious Kai-Ming Chen, and Williams agreed to look after her in exchange for more money.

Kai-Ming, when she finally woke up, could tell them little. She was out with her friends when she came home and found her father dead. She panicked, as did her boyfriend Cole Atwood. She went to a place where she had gotten drugs before, which happened to be Hector Newman’s hideout. She went there willingly, but at some point she became a hostage as the men there kept asking her about Trent, whom she only knew as a drug dealer. She did not know Jason, but he did leave her a message where he referred to Maggie as his partner. Kai-Ming never called him back. I wish I could find it in me to care that Helen was now re-assessing her relationship with and love for Jason (the word ‘partner’ was a trigger) but four episodes in, and I’m still not where the show wants me to be with these two. Jason and Helen are two beautiful people, and since the show keeps telling me they’re in love, I will accept it and move on, but I don’t really feel the insistent pulse of it. 

What’s more interesting for me is how Dani has become more aggressive in her pursuit of Wallace. And this was a targeted pursuit, it could only be a targeted pursuit. Dani showed up at the Webb house, now guarded with Jeff the uniformed close protection security officer, purportedly to check in on Wallace, who was very upset over the torture and death of his good friend Stephen. Helen found her playing with her children, charming not only her husband but the kids she birthed. Helen could not have missed that swipe over a Christmas decor; Dani’s little query about whether the kids made it and Helen’s smiley I-see-you hiss that no, she did, were two professionals who understood each other’s game. Dani took things further at the office, when she plied Wallace with alcohol and told him she heard rumours of Helen having an affair with a civil servant. These two will be fighting soon, no?

Mrs. Reed had emphasised before how important Wallace was to their organisation. He was a rising politician. Helen had given ten years of very valuable intelligence off her relationship with him. She endangered all that with her affair with Jason. A planner like Mrs. Reed would have contingencies, and it was starting to look like Dani was one of them.

Dani’s appearance and Stephen’s death gave the show a chance to spend time with an important though little fleshed out character, Wallace. After his meeting with the Chinese envoy, he went to Number 10 and had a chat with the Prime Minister, Jim Perryman of the Secret Service, and Mitch Porter, the CIA Station Chief. Porter in particular was reticent about providing information to the British, and called their government leaky. It was a casual comment, but an important one; Helen’s activities were undetected by her husband, but their results were not unnoticed by outside intelligence agencies. 

Wallace was with the Prime Minister when word of Stephen Yarrick’s fate reached them. Wallace held his calm, and only lost it when he was home. He cried in Helen’s arms, and vowed to find out who was responsible, and make them pay. Meanwhile, Helen still had Stephen’s phone and was still communicating with the people who killed him. Wallace could not have risen as he did by being a fool. Now that Dani had planted doubts in his mind about the woman he loved for a decade, how he reacted would be fascinating to see. 

Mrs. Reed continued to spin her web. She told Helen that there was an interested party willing to pay Cole Atwood an enormous amount of money to calm things down between the Chinese, who had footage of him fleeing the Ambassador’s residence, and the Americans, whom the Chinese suspected of murdering the Ambassador. Mrs. Reed had already reached out to Helen’s friend Vanessa at the US Embassy. Helen was to go have coffee with Vanessa, arrange a distraction, and go see Cole who was staying at one of the rooms inside the embassy.

Helen, with Sam’s help, successfully reached Cole, and gave him Mrs. Reed’s message. With alarms blaring across the embassy, Cole joined Helen and Sam in their car outside. Cole told them his target was not the Chinese ambassador but the Clarks, a family enterprise of growing power. Trent Clark’s mother Alex Clark was the head of the London operation. When they reached the place where the exchange was supposed to take place, Helen realised that Mrs. Reed lied to her. There was no offer of money; the envelope she handed Cole contained photos of his family. It was a threat. The interested party were the Chinese. Once Helen ascertained that Cole could lead her to Alex Clark, she told Sam to drive away.

Life was a juggling act for these spies and assassins. ‘Go Bang Time’ did not just refer to the firefight that opened the episode. It was also Helen, blowing up her association with her employers in her continued effort to find out who killed Jason. 

Rating: A-

Strays

💌At the embassy, Sam called Vanessa and pretended to be a policeman to give Helen time to get to Cole. Helen swiped someone’s access card to use the elevator, where she had to fight off a security officer. She then called Mrs. Reed to get their tech people to corrupt the security footage. 

💌Michael’s daughter Ruby was only four years old. 

💌Williams and Eleanor's place was about to be hit. We'd very likely see Eleanor's rocket launcher next episode.

You can access Recap Lab’s full coverage of Black Doves via this link.

Episode Title: Go Bang Time

Episode Writer: Joe Barton

Episode Director: Lisa Gunning

Original Air Date: December 5, 2024

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